Prior to 2008, I didn’t know much about banking, finance and economics. For obvious reasons, I, and many others, have taken a bit of a remedial course in these subjects in attempt to wrap our heads around what’s happening in the world. Now that I done hours of reading on the subject, I’ve managed to find an easy, simple 10 minute primer.
Enjoy
The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.
Here’s a weeks worth of webcam images from Grand Forks, ND. A little visual context for what folks are going through up there.
The opponents of the measure gloomily predicted that by unshackling banks and enabling them to move more freely into new kinds of financial activities, the new law could lead to an economic crisis down the road when the marketplace is no longer growing briskly.
”I think we will look back in 10 years’ time and say we should not have done this but we did because we forgot the lessons of the past, and that that which is true in the 1930’s is true in 2010,” said Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota. ”I wasn’t around during the 1930’s or the debate over Glass-Steagall. But I was here in the early 1980’s when it was decided to allow the expansion of savings and loans. We have now decided in the name of modernization to forget the lessons of the past, of safety and of soundness.”
Senator Paul Wellstone, Democrat of Minnesota, said that Congress had ‘’seemed determined to unlearn the lessons from our past mistakes.”
”Scores of banks failed in the Great Depression as a result of unsound banking practices, and their failure only deepened the crisis,” Mr. Wellstone said. ”Glass-Steagall was intended to protect our financial system by insulating commercial banking from other forms of risk. It was one of several stabilizers designed to keep a similar tragedy from recurring. Now Congress is about to repeal that economic stabilizer without putting any comparable safeguard in its place.”
Source: NY Times, 11.5.1999
Great (and sad) photo series by two french photographers.
Un-frickin’-believable. From the Financial Times, we get this gem:
Jack Welch, who is regarded as the father of the “shareholder value” movement that has dominated the corporate world for more than 20 years, has said it was “a dumb idea” for executives to focus so heavily on quarterly profits and share price gains.
and
Mr Welch last week said he never meant to suggest boosting a company’s share price should be the main goal of executives.
“It is a dumb idea,” he said. “The idea that shareholder value is a strategy is insane. It is the product of your combined efforts – from the management to the employees”.
Ooopsie Daisy, I guess.
Matthew can’t pimp work he does elsewhere. That would be a smidge gauche.
But I can pimp it for him.
A great read. Doubly so because I found while browsing the job listings.
(Where is everyone?)
Anyway, thought this was funny for a lazy Sunday morning:
AS A book reviews editor at New Scientist, I often come across so-called science books which after a few pages reveal themselves to be harbouring ulterior motives. I have learned to recognise clues that the author is pushing a religious agenda. As creationists in the US continue to lose court battles over attempts to have intelligent design taught as science in federally funded schools, their strategy has been forced to… well, evolve.
UPDATE (03/16/09): Good grief. The New Scientist pulled the article:
New Scientist has received a legal complaint about the contents of this story. At the advice of our lawyer it has temporarily been removed while we investigate. Apologies for any inconvenience.